


Who the hell is Sylvia?!

by HowlingSentinel



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics), Winter Soldier (MCU)
Genre: AU, Always a girl Steve, Cap as Winter Soldier, F/M, Female Winter Soldier, Genderbent Steve Rogers, Lady!Steve, Lots of Sex, Lots of plot, Multi, Role Switch, Super AU, much violence, rule 63!Steve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:51:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HowlingSentinel/pseuds/HowlingSentinel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sylvia Rogers served her country and died at twenty-five. The Winter Soldier is eternally twenty-five and the most deadly assassin on the face of the planet. </p><p>James Barnes didn't stand a chance, he'd loved her since he was sixteen years old. </p><p>[Title is awful and subject to change along with the tag warnings.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Sylvia Rogers died on a chilly spring morning in 1945, along with her partner, James Buchanan Barnes. She was just twenty-five years old and James was only twenty. At least, that is the official story run the day after a plane explodes over the English Channel. Two days later, James Barnes is found in France, suffering from multiple injuries but very much alive.

 

Slyvia Rogers is never found, no body, no traces of anything, not even her famous disc shield.  Nick Fury of the Howling Commandos draws James into the fold, and years later; SHIELD is born, with Captain America looking distinctly different from the war.

 

Gone was the all American blonde standing over six feet tall. The Captain had been replaced while the country mourned, the next Captain standing up in the formers honor. The message was that Captain America could be anyone, from any walk of life. A thing Sylvia herself, usually called Steven, because men never took well to a woman in war, had been credited with saying.

 

SylviaGrania Rogers was laid to rest officially in a quiet ceremony that was not open to the public.

 

No one ever looked twice at the report of Hitler’s suicide on April 30, 1945. They didn’t see what the German government saw. The too clean shot to the temple, the lack of gun powder residue on the dead dictator.

 

The first report of an operative called Soldier is logged into S.H.I.E.L.D’s database is logged in 1963.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I pushed back the comic timeline for Baron Zemo's trial to put it at the beginning of 1945 rather than the end for various reasons.

**Spring 1945 – Undisclosed location**

She felt so cold, straight to her bones. It was as if she would never get warm again. Her head feels like it might be full of cotton, like she’s been hit too many times.  Her torso is strapped down, her right arm held tight against her body. Blue eyes blearily look around the room.

White. Too bright lights, that too clean smell she’d rarely smelled in her youth but stuck in your brain in a singularly unshakable fashion. She was in a hospital. She pulls against her restraints, barely noting a lack of movement from her left arm.

 _Calm down. Calm down Soldier. You’ve been injured, we cannot begin the procedure if you don’t calm down._  She knows the language but it sounds wrong to her. This isn’t her native tongue. Yet, when her mind grabs for words, all she can find is a jumble. The response starts in German, and switches into Japanese, into Italian, finishes out in Russian. 

 _She cannot remember her mother tongue_. It’s said to someone she cannot see. Who might not be in the room? A sharp tightness forms in her chest. Panic, her breath comes short and her vision swims. Where is she?  Who is this Doctor? Where was, where was… Bucky. Where was James? 

“James! James – I want James.” Best friend, only person she trusted with her life without hesitation or reservation. He wouldn’t leave her. Blue eyes, warm smile, too much swagger. Brown hair, spring time.

 _Sir, the subject is panicking, asking for the sidekick. We need to sedate her and start the procedure!_ There is a barked order and needles pierce her skin. This wasn’t right. Where was James? Where were- where was she? This wasn’t right.

Wasn’t right.

                James?

                        No please, where was James?

**J a m e s!**

  

A saw starts up. Pain lances through her being before darkness takes her.

 

**Three week later - Unnamed Army Facility**

_“What is your name, Soldier?”_

“I don’t know.” German today. It was Italian the day before.

_“What is your rank, Soldier?”_

_“_ I don’t know. “

_“Where were you born, Soldier?”_

“ **I don’t know!** ” The Soldier's remaining hand lifts up and slams against the interrogation room table. Sylvia is terrified. She wants James. Her arm is gone. They keep asking her the same three questions and she can’t even figure out what language feels _right_.

_“Do you know where you were before you woke up?”_

“I want James Barnes. Where is James?!” She stands, towers over the interrogator, face lined with upset. She’s been asking the same question for days. Because he is the only thing she remembers. He is her grounding point. If she can find him  - well, frankly the blonde has no idea what will happen when or if she can find him. Just knows that he would help. Always helped. Baritone laughter and warmth.

 _“We have reports that this Sergeant Barnes was in the accident with you. Unauthorized, he died, unfortunately. Yours was the only body recovered_.” It’s sighed, in a bored tone, the same tone each interrogator uses when they reply. The Soldier, that’s the only name they have given her, and the only one that feels _right_ stiffens. Her face screws up,  she sits heavily in her chair.

Same answer. He died. She got him killed. They were in an accident. It took her arm. She was special. What was her name? Where was she from? Did she remember the accident?

 _“I am tired, let me go to my room_.” The words are ash on her tongue but she is released because it’s said in Russian, and she must use that language if she wants them to let her leave.  Perhaps she is Russian and that’s why they insist.

Two men escort her to a small room far from the main barracks. Army. It felt right but wrong. Her head shakes, she doesn’t speak, can feel eyes on her. Knows that they are watching, as they have watched since the operation.

 

**Moscow - Later that day.**

_“She doesn’t remember who she is.”_  
“We can use it to our advantage.”  
“We don’t know that memories will not resurface. She was famed for her willpower, for a photographic memory. The strength of a platoon –“

_“I am well aware of what she was famed for. I worked with her once. Captain Rogers was magnificent. Now, she is ours. We will mold her into a weapon this world has never seen before. We will make her Russian, my friend. She will be our greatest champion beside the Guardian and Widow agents, the only of her kind.”_

_“Samples of her blood confirm perfect DNA, but no sign of the enhancement serum. It transformed her on a molecular level –“_

_“Doctor, Rogers is a **woman**_ **.** _It doesn’t matter if the serum cannot be recreated._ _We don’t need a serum, we need her womb and a husband.”_

_“But you want her to be an operative?”_

_“Oh yes. She will shape history in our favor. She will birth the soldiers that will protect the communist ideal. She is our greatest asset. Spend the rest of the month feeding her information about a life in Russia. Then send her after the German.”_

_“Yes Sir.”_

_“Before you go - call her Mariya.”_

_“Sir?”_

_“It has been a very **bitter** March for our dear Captain Rogers. I want her to carry a reminder of it. Even if she doesn’t know.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mariya means bitter, yes that's an awful title name drop. I hope you enjoyed it though! More to come.


	3. Chapter 3

**Spring 1945 –Western Europe**

“What the hell do you mean you can’t fucking find her?! The French troops pulled me out of the channel in two goddamn hours but no one can find the Captain? “  He’s so mad he could spit. So completely disenchanted with the same answers he’s been given for a month straight. She wasn’t with the plane wreckage, wasn’t in the channel at all. There was no sign of Captain America, not a scrap of cloth, not her shield, not a damn thing to indicate the woman had ever been in Europe that day. 

James Barnes is no stranger to losing people. Lost his mother, lost his father, sent his sister away to school, he can’t lose the only person in this world who’d listened to him every time. He couldn’t let them sweep her under the rug like he fears they are doing. 

An acceptable loss – because she was female and no one had ever liked that fact.  Rogers had been demeaned during the war more times than he could count on a good day and twice as many as he remembered on a bad. He’d beaten so many G.I.’s for talking about her without respect he couldn’t list all the names if he tried.

And she had always reprimanded him for it. Told him to be the bigger person – when he knew damn well she was itching to do it herself. But those days were behind her, so the story went. Little blonde girl from the big apple, who’d picked fights with anyone and everyone, only picked fights with the big wigs of evil now.

“Sergeant Barnes, we cannot expend further assets in hopes of retrieving a body to be –“

“She’s not fucking dead!” He says it so quietly, so angrily that the two men debriefing him share a look. There had always been rumors about the teenager and the Captain. Everyone had always wondered… 

“Let’s get Namor on the horn. He can look for her while me n’ the other’s keep fighting. None of the Invaders would let her go down like that. You gotta let – we can’t just _leave_ her out there! She’s your greatest tactical asset and you’re just gonna leave her??” He’s grasping at straws considering appealing to Namor of all people to help search for Sylvia. Namor respected her, though, even if he and Buck didn’t get along so great, he respected Sylvia. He’d look for her. He _had_ to.

 “Sergeant you have a war to fight, the Captain would -.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me – do not tell me what Sylvia would have wanted-”

“Language, Sergeant. The fact of the matter is the Captain knew what was at stake; she always did and always put duty first. Now, you’ve got a choice, you can continue to fight, and take down as many of those bastards as you can or, you can go back to the states.”

“You’re just going to fucking leave her out there! She deserves better than this! She’s been –“

“Captain Sylvia G. Rogers died, Sergeant Barnes. She died with honor just as she served and would be appalled at the display you’re making here today. You are dismissed, send in the Torch and Toro.”

The young man leaves the room swearing up a storm, and sending in the Human Torch on his way out, looking beaten and depressed. They were all about to get the same talk. The Army was letting Cap die. They were going to leave her to her fate; all because the waning war was more important to them. The war they were gaining and gaining, and _gaining_ ground in every single day. 

The team finds him in the cantina, already half soused. None of them say a word as they take seats at the table. They knew about the fight with the robot, knew how they were strapped to that plane, how they escaped only to jump back onto it.  How James got caught and Sylvia ripped him free, only to get blown up with the plane.

“She would not have survived. I have seen the Captain survive many things, but – they said she was _on_ the plane, it exploded, Barnes. You must face –“

“Namor, no offense, but you’re shit at this. She isn’t dead. I know she isn’t.  Nothing aa small as a plane would take her down.” 

“She was a woman and –“ 

“If you say delicate I swear to all that is holy I will _end you_ , Namor. You fought beside her. You took her orders. You respected her, do not try and sell me some line that you don’t even believe! She fought for freedom, she was good, the best. She’s _out_ there somewhere.  So either go look for her, or sit down, shut up, and _drink_.” Toro and the Torch wave for a round of beer, faces grim but resigned. This was going to be a long, long night. 

Two days later when a six-foot tall, two hundred pound blonde man shows up in the uniform designed for Sylvia, toting a shield that looks brand spanking new - James decks him. James almost gets Court Marshaled twice for the rows he has with the stand in, seen as insubordination. Every single request he puts in to be reassigned is denied, even with the war being won, brass needed a familiar face on the reels, in the posters, someone the american public  _loved._ A fact that James railed against, because it wasn't as if they'd styled his Captain as a woman, oh no, she was styled as a man, reels shot from behind, never getting a look at the Captain's face. They never recorded her speaking. Even the  _comics_  depicted her as a man. It was disgusting. James knew it, the other Invaders knew it, hell even Sylvia had suspected her gender was twisted to make the world comfortable. They  _didn't_ need him as a familiar face, they just wanted him there to make sure Cap never got bloody.

James hadn't minded when that was his job for Steph, but the new guy? James'd let him hang out to dry if he could.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize these chapters are still relatively short, once we get past the set up, they'll likely get longer as we explore Masha's story. Thank you for the comments and Kudos! Every time I get a notification my day is made.

Five am and there is nary a person awake in Berlin. Even with the threat of the Soviet and Allied armies bearing down on them, no one yet stirs. Which is fine for the ghost walking the shadowed halls.

Her name is Mariya Allilueyeva, and she is Russia’s most precious soldier. General Karpov himself had told her that. Her doctors produced documentation, her birth certificate, pictures of her parents; they had taken her to see her childhood home.  She had shaped the war they said. Her shield had felled more enemies than they could hope to count.

There was one more to kill.

She’d been ferried into Berlin over the course of a week mid-month, sliding behind enemy lines and into the Fuhrer’s household. They gave her a fake arm, and she acted with it well enough no one looked at her strangely.

Her feet carry her down into the bunker, breakfast tray already made. While the rest of Berlin slept, the Fuhrer had become increasingly paranoid. With good reason, his military was falling apart, his people being beaten into submission again. The oatmeal smells of almond, pieces sprinkled on top of the two bowls, the tea, if one paid close attention, also smelled vaguely of almond. Mariya is counting on him to not notice.

It is hard to get the door open one handed with a tray balanced on your hip, but the blonde does it as she has so many other things in this last month. As hoped, the Fuhrer was up, though his bride was nowhere to be seen.  A false smile is placed upon Mariya’s lips as she comes into the room fully.

She chatters as she has this whole last half of the month, straightening things around the bunker while watching the German eat. His wife must have woken to her chattering – perfect really – and comes to eat as well. Mariya lingers, as she always has, for the tray to be cleared.

Braun is complaining within minutes of a pain. The Fuhrer however, seems unaffected, it makes the Soldier’s teeth grit.  This was taking too long.  She makes her way around the bunker again, movements becoming slightly agitated as she waits. Nothing. Not a peep, and usually he was so vocal when he was not feeling well.  She has a small pistol on her, a last resort.

They wanted a suicide. Those were her orders; make it look like he took his own life. Let the German Reich fall under the press of the Allies.  A breath is let out through her noise, she’s becoming antsy, and this was taking much too long. Poison was the wrong choice for this.

Another circuit around the bunker, dusting this time, more idle chatter. Nothing in the way of indication of pain, not a whisper of distress or discomfort could be seen in the man. She would have to shoot him. But not until Braun went, if the wife was still alive she would call out the killing and the mission would be a failure.

Mariya counts the seconds, paces, straightens, and acts like she has two working arms. Finally three hundred twenty eight seconds later, there is a thud. The German calls out for the wife and Mariya is moving. She has to do this quick, to get the angle right, to make it look like he did this himself. She sprints across the room, skids to a stop, the pistol whipped out and aim taken in the moments he is frozen stiff by the sight of his maid leveling a gun at him. The shot cracks; his head jerks back, force of the bullet splattering the back of his head against the far wall and the distance in between.

Twenty seconds to place the gun in his hand, blood draining from the head wound quickly; there is already a puddle. Fifteen seconds to cross the bunker. Three minutes to get out the emergency exit and cover signs of her leaving. Fifty minutes to return to her contacts. Two days until she is safe within Russia’s borders.

_Well done, Mariya!_ The praise sets hard in her stomach, she feels like a dog and ends up glaring her handler down. New men come into the debrief room. She’s never seen them before. Panic rises in her. Was the mission not a success? Had she failed?

_“Comrade Allilueyeva, please come with us. We have a proposition to discuss.”_ Curiosity, confusion, and interest flash through the blonde . Proposition? No news of mission failure, this was good. She hadn’t let Russia down.   The blonde stands and nods, quiet all the way to the lab.

_“Comrade, you have been gravely injured in the line of duty. But, we are developing a program. One you will be uniquely suite for.”_  
“How many other candidates are there?”  
“Two or three, but we think with your service record, that this program will only succeed for Russia with you.”

_“What training does it require?”_

_“None. That is the beauty. All your combat training is still there, in your body. We will be utilizing never before thought of procedures to give you all the mission information directly. No files, the information will be planted right into your brain. We will be able to replace your arm as well, if you decided that continuing service to the mother country is what you wish to do.”_

Her eyes narrow, baby blues sharp as they had been in the war, before her memory was ripped from her, while they regard the elder man. He is balding; has coke bottle thick lenses perched on his nose. A scientist for sure, his speech is refined. She wouldn’t be given an arm if she didn’t do this. If she didn’t do this, there was less chance of success. If the program failed… _“What if the program fails?”_

_“Then Russia will be defenseless against those that would see her fall into ruin.”_ Mariya doesn’t like dramatics, at least, she doesn’t recall having ever liked them. While the statement feels over the top, she also has a niggling worry worming itself into her brain. Mission failure hurt Russia. She has lived her life in pursuit of keeping Russia safe.

But that doesn’t feel right. Her right hand lifts and rubs at her brow. She’s missing something. Something is not right about all this. Russian feels wrong on her tongue, clumsy.  While she performed admirably, pulling the trigger had actually made her heart clench. The German was already dead- she had just been impatient for him to succumb. It felt wrong now that she could breathe and pause to think about it. Never kill a defenseless man.

Her teeth grit, her fingers rubbing at her brows harder as the pain intensifies. There are worried glances thrown around the room that she doesn’t see. It takes a few pregnant moments before Mariya pulls herself to her full height and nods sharply.

_“I will serve my country_.”

The Soldier, Mariya, is escorted into a test facility where they draw her blood and then set her inside a long tube and fit a mask over her face. They tell her they are going to put her to sleep for a little while, part of the program. She’ll wake up soon and things will really get underway, they just needed to win the damn war first.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day she died, she screamed. Possibly triggering content, be warned.

While Masha sleeps, the war continues and eventually ends. Europe realigns itself in the wake of destruction, trials are held, the nations band together in an effort to prevent such a war from ever happening again. Germany is divided between governing powers – the newly formed Soviet State and the Allied Forces. The Invaders are disbanded after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – James is assigned to a new unit, left to his own devices once more.

Agreements are made, peace restored and life returns to a semblance of normal once again. This normal is new, however, because the world had changed dramatically. This world war has ended an era. The gentleman’s war of years past is well and truly dead, gone with the advent of the Atom bombs and everyone is scrambling to make more.

There is a new threat on the horizon, at least to the western nation’s reckoning, and that is _communism._ It’s just whispers at first, everyone more focused on rebuilding their nations and lives now that peace once again reigns.

Mariya sleeps, suspended in her tube of freezing water, a mask over her nose and mouth, her pulse checked every two hours on the hour for years.  The Soviets assigned to switch her tank in 1950, when the red scare grips the world, draw blood from her, and test it intently trying to recreate the serum that created her. She is the only of her kind still, but soon, soon she will not be. That is the hope at least. The scientists work and work, but ultimately fail.

They learn components of the serum, but not enough to make one that takes. There are many trials and many failures. Four years pass, and Masha is woken one day after there have been plans ‘acquired’ from the Americans. These plans are for an arm, something to make her whole and truly useful once more.

“Careful!” A barked order is what the Soldier wakes to, the first sounds since being guided to lay back in a tube and be put to sleep. It makes those dazed blue eyes narrow; sweep the room to locate the source of the sound. She assesses the man it comes from before moving on – looking for any and all threats to herself or the facility.  All she can truly make out at the moment is too bright light, the shadows of people, the feel of their hands pulling her from the freezing waters.

She idly muses that this is what the birth trauma must be like. A sudden and jarring experience for newborns is just as jarring and distressing for an adult. The light slowly becomes bearable, receding from too bright to acceptable levels as minutes tick by on the clock. She is lifted out of the tank in degrees, people shuffling and speaking amongst themselves. Mariya pays them little mind, they haven’t dropped her and that’s the truly important part. When the room comes into focus completely that’s when she realizes that time has actually passed. This is not the dark, dank room she was led to, this is not her pod that she was laid into. Things have changed, the room is sleek, sterile, time has passed and quickly.

“Comrade Allilueyeva.”

“Yes –“ Her voice surprises her, rough with disuse and barely above a whisper. Her right arm shifts, hand running against her throat in effort to fix it.

“It is 1954, comrade, we are waking you for a very exciting procedure. You will have  a prosthetic made, affixed to your body in place of the ruined arm. You will be whole again – truly useful to our great land. It is the future that comes for you, you are a very lucky girl.” Her eyes take in the scientist – he must be for he has on a white lab coat. He is older, his mannerisms making her feel comfortable, clearly past fifty, and the man has a potbelly. He seems almost grandfatherly.

With her relaxation, Masha is more easily maneuvered out of the tube, to the point she can heave herself completely out of it. Her feet slap against the floor and for a moment she looks as if she might topple to the floor. The world tilts on it’s axis, her head swims and then everything rights itself. Her head shakes, hand moving – pushing much too long hair from her face.

It shocks her a bit; just how long her hair is now. It had barely brushed her shoulders when they sent her to Germany. Now it brushes her waist. Mariya is thinner; she needn’t look at herself or step on a scale to know this. She feels weak her reactions are noticeably slower. Her full lips tilt into a displeased frown. This will not do. She must rectify this state of being at the first opportunity, like this, the Soldier is useless.

“Let’s move on, Doctor, I do not wish to hold up the procedure, nor do I wish to keep results from the Commanders.” Her voice is stronger but still raspy as she swings her eyes around the room once more. Her expression is wary, distrustful, even though she is well aware these scientists and physicians are all here for her. They are here for a single purpose – making her whole. An arm – two functional arms meant active duty. Active duty meant she would receive orders and have a purpose.

Masha remembers moments from before her sleep where her mind wandered, without something to keep her occupied she thought on herself and her missions, tried to remember the plane crash. Those efforts brought her nothing but pain, headaches ranging from mild to skull splitting.

He motions her forward and she goes willingly, shuffling as a set of towels is thrust at her. Another scowl mars her features. It takes some juggling, but one towel is tossed over her shoulder and the other wrapped around her body, the moisture clinging to the undergarments she’d worn being soaked up. Her hair was harder to deal with. An older woman takes pity on her, coming forward to carefully squeeze the cyro fluid from the golden locks. They eventually leave the cryo chamber all together and move into a room that is distinctly medical. She is maneuvered onto a padded table and a flurry of nurses surround her.

Her blood pressure is measured, blood drawn, iron levels assessed. Her reflexes are tested, weight taken, height measured, back checked for signs of scoliosis. A full medical exam is performed – there is even a gynecologist there and Masha has never been more uncomfortable to be thrust into stirrups in her life – that she can remember at least.

When they are satisfied, she is again moved. The hallway is dark, colored a bland grey, clearly this is a military facility – a small comfort really. She counts the steps to the next room. It takes nearly two hundred. Here she balks in the doorway.

The table is metal, there is gown for her to wear, a hair bet. Her eyes slide around the room, the room  _smells_  of metal. A table full of mechanical elements is at the foot of the main table. Another full of saws and soldering irons sits at the middle, creating an enclosure where she must assume the surgeons and technicians will stand to work.

There are bits and pieces of equipment littering the room that Masha has no names for. Some that she does and it jars her – because those words come in English and she doesn’t know why she should know English at all. Perhaps she worked with the English before Russia became the Soviet state? That question makes her head throb badly enough she has to shake her head and her right palm presses against her right eye to calm the pain.

“Comrade, if you will dress and then lay upon the table. We have prepared an anesthetic for you, something that should keep you sleeping during the procedure.”

Prepared especially for her? The blonde’s head tilts with interest. Why did she need a particular anesthetic? Was she allergic or resistant to the usual one? Again her head throbs and she grits her teeth, nodding sharply before moving to do as she was bid. The gown is difficult, but ultimately Mariya prevails. Hopping onto the table, the cold makes her throat close and her eyes close against a wave of uncertainty.

Hands urge her to lie back, and she lets herself be guided. There is a mask placed over her mouth, a shot given, slowly light and sound fade away.

The surgeons have to work in concert with technicians – the techs tell the surgeons what must be moved or  _removed_  and then the scalpels move to do as ordered. It starts with he removal of her arm. Truly it is little more than a nub now. It had been removed at the middle of the bicep – completely useless to the Soldier. Now they begin to take it completely. The skin and muscle are removed, tendons and cartilage salvaged.

This process is one of merging organic with technological. Purely experimental and no one is sure it will work. This could render their Soldier useless. Everyone is silent except for the occasional murmured instruction.

Mariya is supposed to be floating in a world without knowledge of the proceedings. However, as is her lot in life, the Soldier wakes to pain and confusion. Her initial jerk and yelp make a surgeon stab into a  _useful_  muscle and the Soldier bites back a wail.

“Strap her down!”

“She isn’t supposed to wake!”

“We calculated the dosage to overcome her metabolism.”

“Obviously the calculations were wrong.”  
“Check her blood pressure, her pulse, pupil dilation. Stitch up that cut before it heals poorly.”

“Her pulse is through the roof, we cannot administer another dose of anesthetic.”

“We must stop the procedure.”

“We cannot leave her like this. She is useless.”

“The pain may render her useless anyway. It may kill her.”

“A chance we may have to take. Call the commanders – the red room.”

As the doctors patch the mistake and restrain the super soldier phone calls are made. The moments tick by and her panic recedes. The pain does not.

“Dose her with morphine, keep a drip, ready the blood – they want to procedure finished. Karpov says to have faith in her willpower.”

“He is a fool –“

“ _Comrade_.”

“Commencing the procedure. We must work swiftly gentlemen, without the anesthetic her healing is phenomenal.  The arm base must be in place before the body begins to compensate for the loss of the entire arm..”

Mariya listens, wary, in pain, she wants to be off this damned table. Her arm hurts. It hasn’t hurt in years. Or at least that she remembers. The stump had bothered her little during her mission to execute the German. But now, she wants to lash out, needs to get away.

Her eyes water and her breathing picks up.

“She is panicking.  _Abort the procedure_.  Get the asset off that table!”   
“We have to –“  
“Do you want to lose her because she reacts violently? We are wielding  _knives_ , she can kill us all. Get her off that table and sedated! NOW!”

Mariya could kiss however was speaking. She is thanking God over and over in her head as the straps come undone and she heaves herself over onto the floor. Her legs are still weak; she’s still recovering from being let out of her tank.

There are hands on her, soothing noises, but she doesn’t move. Her arm – stump, it’s useless, causing her pain. Self-loathing fills her. How was she supposed to work to keep her country safe with this deficiency?

“Comrade Allilueyeva.”  
“Da?”

“We must remove and replace your arm.”  
“The – he said the medicine did not work. I cannot sleep.”  
“No. We think it best to continue anyway. “

Her teeth dig into her lip.  The idea of continuous pain until the procedure is done is daunting. Could she survive that? Be  _useful_  later? Her gut says she cannot. Her mind would break. That they’re willing to risk it  - it makes her feel cold. Wasn’t she  _important_ they had saved her, hadn’t they? Kept her alive for the Union? Now they would risk her mental efficiency.

“No.”

“Comrade?” There is the sound of feet moving, someone is leaving, and in a hurry. Mariya is sure it’s because of her refusal.  
“You will take my mind with my arm. I will be useless.”  
“You cannot know that –“

“Have you heard the screams on a battle field when a leg or arm is lost? When  _both_  limbs are lost? Do you know the shock and pain of it?” Mariya doesn’t know where this is coming from, but she knows it to be true. She’s seen it. The shock alone should kill a man, and when it doesn’t, their minds are gone.  
They would do that to her. They would essentially kill her. Her heart beat ramps up, adrenaline floods her with the realization that she wasn’t safe here. She had to get out. This was  _wrong_.

Her right hand slaps against the floor, propelling her onto her feet, she’s still shaky, legs unsure of the movements she needs from them, but she’s moving.  _Get out. Get away. This isn’t right. It’s not right._

“Someone get the tranquilizers!” Her feet slap against the floor and she careens into a guard. His knife is ripped from his thigh when his hands reach for her, tucked neatly into a space between his ribs.

It is pandemonium as Mariya – no, no that’s not her name. What’s her name? Where is James? Where is she?  _Where is she??_  Three hallways and she’s hit with the first of the tranquilizers. A nurse ambushed her, slamming the needle into the ruined arm. Howling in rage, the blonde manages to toss the nurse off her; to keep going. She had to get  _out_  to get _away_.

The next time she’s slapped with a needle, four guards are holding her down and there are six nurses. Six nurses and six needles. They’re going to kill her. This is where she dies. She screams for help before the world goes black.

The next time Mariya wakes, it’s screaming as they solder bone to metal. They have her strapped to the table so tightly she can barely feel her remaining arm. There is a bit in her mouth, and she screams around it, every new touch of that super heated metal to her bone sets her off again until her mind shuts down, drags her into the darkness for a time.

It’s fifteen hours before the arm base is placed and the tech to make it work implanted along her spine. That table is where she dies- over and over again while screaming. 

 


	6. Chapter 6

Mariya stands with blank eyes, it’s been four weeks since her procedure. Her left side is heavy, it takes too much out of her according to her Doctors. Her spine is buckling, her ribs constantly bruised and starting to fracture.

It’s all very confusing to her. She doesn’t remember where she is, who she is, who these people are. The language is familiar, but it is heavy and slow on her tongue when she is addressed. That, at least, is rarer now. They know all there is to know about her. The only questions that are asked are if she is in pain, and then how much.

They keep drawing her blood, monitor her while she sleeps. It is unnerving. Mariya doesn’t like it. Her lips pull into a frown as she watches people argue. She’s not listening. Shouting upsets her. It makes her panic. They say she is broken.

That upsets her too – she was supposed to be made useful. They had taken her purpose from her when they labeled her broken. She shifts minutely. The general looks at her. Her eyes avert from the table.

“Comrade Allilueyeva.”

“Sir?”

“They say you remember nothing.” A statement. One that still wants an answer, she can tell when she trains cornflower blue eyes on him. He is waiting.

“They say my name is Mariya. They say I am defective in some manner. This notion upsets me.”

“Why is that, Comrade?”

“I was meant to have purpose.”

“Do you remember that purpose?”

“No.”

His eyes turn from hers, and he addresses the assembled party. “Bring in Faustus, fix her so she will not be over taxed by the arm.”

There is a derisive noise to her left, Mariya does not look. “She is functioning, living, she can breed. There is no need to waste resources on Faustus, or fixing it so she –“Now Mariya looks, deep and frightening rage building underneath her skin. She was not a waste. She was not just a _thing_ to incubate children inside of!

“That woman is not just breeding stock. You will do well to remember that. We cannot recreate her. To use her in such a manner is to disrespect the woman I fought beside. A woman who helped the war in more ways than we can ever fully know.”

“She is just –“

“Do. Not.” The General is in the other man’s face. Spittle flying as he dresses the younger man down. She stops listening. Part of herself tells her to forget it. To leave it alone. Another part says to hold that rage close, to use it, later. To teach the bully a lesson.

“I volunteer for whatever must be done.” Her voice is hard and clear. It makes the room quiet. They are all looking at her, carefully regarding her. The General looks pleased. Terribly pleased. Mariya has made the right choice.

“Very good, Comrade. It will be painful.”

“I will do what needs to be done.” She has always done what needed to be done.

Hadn’t she?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is a pretty difficult story to write, and I don't want to just toss half assed updates at all of you. So, this is short, but the next several will be as we focus on the initial creation of the Winter Soldier. Enjoy!


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